Exclusive: Mobile Web Surfers Abandon Slow Sites Too, Says Gomez

Mobile website visitors are as impatient as desktop web surfers. Data from Gomez shows that mobile web surfers abandon slow mobile websites almost as fast as they do for slow-loading websites in desktop browsers.

A national survey of consumers sponsored by Gomez showed that more than half expect a mobile website to load as fast, or faster, than their desktop counterpart.

Mobile shopping accelerated in 2010, but many retailers did not meet customer expectations, with the Compuware Gomez Retail Satisfaction Index showing an aggregate score of 47.3, considered "tolerable," compared to a score of 84.2 for desktop websites.

The problem is not the wireless carriers but how the mobile websites compare to competitors. Gomez Benchmarks show, even for the same device on the same carrier, that there is a 9-second difference in response time from the leading website to the site ranked 15th. Clearly, some mobile websites offer stellar speeds, while others lag, even on the same network.

"Mobile websites are reminiscent of where the overall web was 10 years ago, performance-wise," says Matt Poepsel, VP of Performance Strategies for Compuware Gomez.

Businesses are in heated competition to provide fast, well-performing websites, since experience has shown impatient consumers will abandon slow or poorly performing sites. Recent consumer surveys conducted for Gomez showed nearly a third of consumers will abandon slow sites after five seconds or less of wait time, with 78 percent opting for a competitor's site during peak times.